Growing Old

What is it to grow old? 

Is it to lose the glory of the form, 

The lustre of the eye? 

Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? 

Yes, but not for this alone. 

Is it to feel our strength - 

Not our bloom only, but our strength -decay? 

Is it to feel each limb 

Grow stiffer, every function less exact, 

Each nerve more weakly strung? 

Yes, this, and more! but not, 

Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be! 

'Tis not to have our life 

Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow, 

A golden day's decline! 

'Tis not to see the world 

As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, 

And heart profoundly stirred; 

And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, 

The years that are no more! 

It is to spend long days 

And not once feel that we were ever young. 

It is to add, immured 

In the hot prison of the present, month 

To month with weary pain. 

It is to suffer this, 

And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel: 

Deep in our hidden heart 

Festers the dull remembrance of a change, 

But no emotion -none. 

It is -last stage of all - 

When we are frozen up within, and quite 

The phantom of ourselves, 

To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost 

Which blamed the living man. 

Matthew Arnold 

Try Learning Something New Every Day!

Evaluate Propositions!!!

Is Boredom Unavoidable?

Today I chatted with Lori, a character from Matisse's painting "Luxe, Calme et Volupté", about inevitability of boredom. 

She turned the canvas around and in a melancholic voice started reading:

"C'est l'Ennui! L'oeil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,

II rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.

Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,

— Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!"

Haiku

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku

inazuma no kaina wo karan kusamakura

lend me your arms, fast as thunderbolts, for a pillow on my journey.

Is Boredom Unavoidable?

I just asked an Eritrean man on the plane if "Boredom was Unavoidable". He took out a poem that he yesterday wrote for his wife of 17 years, and started reading it to me. Perfect rhymes; you may notice that by noting the letters that end each verse!

Is Boredom Unavoidable?

Last night, running at sunset on the Florida beach, I asked an ancient Pelican if "Boredom was Unavoidable". He replied 

"Oui Oui,

Since my gaze set upon this deep turquoise sea,

My mind has been set free.

In such state of absence and glee,

Your question sounds

borderline schizophrenic to me!"

A Farewell 

I 

My fairest child, I have no song to give you; 

No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: 

Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you 

For every day. 

II 

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; 

Do noble things, ...

And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever 

One grand, sweet song. 

Charles Kingsley 

Contradict me

Movement is the favorable balance of contradictory thoughts. Thoughts of morning one hour is countered by an urge to celebrate next. A man of contradiction is a man of all seasons!

Thanks for the song

Some times even the small mice or the wild tigers have a soul that is a bird. Not a blu one, not in a cage... a colorful one, so beautiful that could captivate you. But the most magical is its song.. A divine melody. This bird doesn't want to sing often, you have to be patient to hear. But you will hear..At the beginning just a sweet whisper..and then louder and louder.. And the bird starts to feel happy and confident.. and sing more loud and even more beautiful. And your soul start feeling that is been touched and becoming a bird too..

Thanks for the song!!!!...

Noches alegres, mananas tristes

Happy Nights, Sad Mornings

It has been so

In these moments, as past, present, and future coalesce to form the hours of my life, I feel dissatisfied and disgusted by the circumstances of my life. And what is the rationale behind this pain, what is this bad karma the consequence of? Context, or lack thereof, deprives us of our vital needs to belong to, to interact with, and to experience magic and serendipity. Without context we are children of odds and random collisions of particles; since every atom belonging to me, as well may not belong to you.

Unpretentious

The irony of modern man is that he can look at himself from 1000 m high, see all of his follies, and keep going indifferently. Simply put, the modern man is unpretentiously callous!
In widening the arena of discourse, we have sacrificed grace upon the altar of freedom.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377

Unbearable

“She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”  ― Carl Sagan,

Walter Benjamin

"There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." --Walter Benjamin

Real Life

Welcome to real life!
-Paying out of pocket
-Services amazingly work!
-Not many lucky nights
-Going to bed alone Friday nights!  - M. Kh

بهار

بوی باران، بوی سبزه، بوی خاک
شاخه‌های شسته، باران خورده، پاک
آسمان آبی و ابر سپيد
برگهای سبز بيد
عطر نرگس، رقص باد
نغمه شوق پرستوهای شاد
خلوت گرم کبوترهای مست

نرم نرمک می رسد اينک بهار
خوش به حال روزگار

خوش به حال چشمه ‌ها و دشتها
خوش به حال دانه‌ها و سبزه‌ها
خوش به حال غنچه‌های نيمه‌باز
خوش به حال دختر ميخک که می خندد به ناز

خوش به حال جام لبريز از شراب
خوش به حال آفتاب

ای دل من گرچه در اين روزگار
جامه رنگين نمی‌ پوشی به کام
باده رنگين نمی ‌بينی به جام
نقل و سبزه در ميان سفره نيست
جامت از آن می که می ‌بايد تهی است

ای دريغ از تو اگر چون گل نرقصی با نسيم
ای دريغ از من اگر مستم نسازد آفتاب
ای دريغ از ما اگر کامی نگيريم از بهار

گر نکوبی شيشه غم را به سنگ
هفت رنگش می‌شود هفتاد رنگ

--فریدون مشیری

Among the crowed

Among the crowed

And then there're those moments

When you feel the presence of another body

Next to you,

In a party,

Among the crowed,

And she tells you,

Please do not misunderstand

My arms touching

Your wide, manly shoulders ...

I am here to depart,

And to give you

One last special attention;

That you may cherish, and never forget

As you get back among the crowed

Where a Palestinian girl has found a lover

Of Zoroastrian origin,

In an evening of Persian new year celebration,

A Romanian and Serbian reunite over their perfect bodies,

A professor sheds tears out of his loneliness,

In a space where a Basque man, once, called home

I carry the weight of these hours;

Only made bearable

by that one last special attention.

Getting back to the crowed

For soon going back to the ground,

Where the Hyacinth roots

Awaiting another resurrection!

From Ordinary to Extraordinary

The weekend magic was in another liberation from homeostasis

In a beautiful Japanese girl who took a bath

In a planed evening laughed by Gods

In a clandestine Walgreens purchase

In discussions of meaning and happiness

In a ordinary person meeting an ordinary person

In land of snow and ice

Recovering from the wreckages of a bygone day

In clarity of purpose

In caring, in Philo, in lobsters, margaritas

In understanding the difference between red and green

In a journey to determine what 1 gant can buy you

You may start with your first $12

Loose your rhythm and give in to the streams of consciousness ...